Developer to Consultant

bobnavision

Hi All,

I need some sincere advice here. I am a devloper (5yrs) and like to
become a consultanat. How can I develop my skills to achieve this. what is expected from a good consultant.

I will appreciate all your advices.

Thnx

Marije_Brummel

This is a very difficult move.

Problem is, most consultants I know have no development experience. This makes the typical consultant role different from the deverloper to consultant step.

If I were you I'd present myself as all-round expert. These are very-very-very rare and extremely wanted. Profiling yourself as consultant would give people the wrong idea.

For me, I started as an end user and moved towards development. I have done add-on development for 8 years and had a lot of discussions with endusers and consultants. This for me has led to the opportunity of understanding both languages and becomming all-round and indepenent.

Good luck.

ssingla

How about trying the other way :

Consultant to Developer (retaining primary skill as consultant)

Marije_Brummel

There are a lot of consultants with basic Development skills which is a great asset.

Personaly I find it easier to communicate with those consultants.

Worst is middle management without any NAV knowledge but with the power of moving people around, judging them and having to evaluate their team.

Sorry for being so judgemental but being in this business for 10 years from end-user to management to independent expert I have seen to much. :oops:

DenSter

As a consultant you have to be able to talk to users from all different levels. You have to be able to discuss NAV with senior management, and also be able to talk to the guy in the warehouse to figure out what they would use the system for.

You will need to know business process, not just NAV functionality. You will need to know how NAV works, but you will also have to know the business implications of all steps in the process. Why do they have someone approve this document. What is the purpose of a list of information grouped by a certain dimension.

A consultant's main skill involves people. A developer's main skill involves bits and bytes. These are almost complete opposites. If you think your people skills are good enough to be a consultant then this might be a good move for you. If you can be successful you will be a sought after professional, because most developers' people skills are not good enough. It's one thing to be on friendly terms with the owner of a customer's business, but another entirely to discuss strategic implications of their ERP system.

By the way, I really don't like consultants with technical skills. Consultants mucking around in the code has caused more problems than it solved. If you want to move to being a consultant, make sure you use your tech skill wisely, and keep the tech staff informed about what you do.

ssingla

Denster Wrote

By the way, I really don't like consultants with technical skills.

:shock:
Hope we work together some day and will see if your opinion changes.

DenSter

As long as you:
1 - don't muck around in the code without telling me what you did
2 - keep your hands away from the code - full stop

You want to be a consultant, you leave the code alone

As the Godfather said: "that's the price you pay.... for the life you choose...."

ssingla

No worry. I follow all the coding standards I know and keep my tech. lead aware of all the mess I write

DenSter

People with skills in both worlds are very valuable of course. It is very useful to be able to talk technical details with a consultant, just as it is nice to talk to a developer who knows a thing or two about the functionality and business sense.

Alex_Chow

bobnavision wrote:

Hi All,

I need some sincere advice here. I am a devloper (5yrs) and like to
become a consultanat. How can I develop my skills to achieve this. what is expected from a good consultant.

I will appreciate all your advices.

Thnx

When you say "consultant", are you referring to going off to become an independent contractor? Or do you mean you're going to be getting the requirements from the customers for your current solution center?

There's a big difference between the 2.

ssingla

Off topic :
With MS allowing developers licence to NSC's only and no personal licences to indivisuals, What is the future of Independent/Freelance Consultants.

Alex_Chow

ssingla wrote:

Off topic :
With MS allowing developers licence to NSC's only and no personal licences to indivisuals, What is the future of Independent/Freelance Consultants.

They will need to partner with an existing solution center. Or start a solution center themselves and pay their dues.

Marije_Brummel

Or ask their customers to purchase the dev-license.

I prefer to work with partners.

Miklos_Hollender

I think consultancy can be defined on two distinct levels.

The first level, and that's fairly easy is to

1) be able to talk with mid-management like warehouse managers or chief accountants who have fairly specific requirements (f.e. "I want to know which production orders did my current stock came from in order to determine it's age")

2) Analyse these requirements, ask the right questions, find the vulnerable spots, and design a solution usually consisting of a clever mixture of standard features and custom development (in the above example, standard Lot tracking with some bits added to it to make it more convenient to use f.e. output journal automatically creates a lot which is the prod. order number).

The second, much harder level is:

1) Be able to talk to top management who usually have strategic goals ("I want our average sales order lead time reduced from 6 days to 3-4 days")
2) Reorganize business processes to fit this goal
3) Define the requirements what the software needs to do to in order to achieve this goal
4) Either design the solution (as above) or tell these requirements to another consultant who will design (as above)

I'm a consultant in the first sense, but not in the second sense. That really needs a lot of experience and also, I think, simply: age. I mean this second sense of consultancy sort of requires you to have the looks of a 40-years old distinguished businessman with greying hair, you know, that sort of guy, who not only wears, but LIKES to wear a tie in order to be taken seriously in that role, because that role requires quite some air of authority - you tell people they should things differently and you better sound credible. If you are something like me, a 29 years old guy with a ponytail who looks uncomfortable in a suit, well, then people can believe you you can design software correctly and therefore you can do the first sense of consultancy, but people won't really believe you can tell them how to do things better.

One could argue that this second sense of consultancy is actually project management. But one could also argue that the first sense of consultancy is actually nothing but intelligent, professional development and only the second sense is real consultancy.

There are distinct difference how solution centres define these things. The way we work is that developers are expected to be able to do the first level of consultancy so the implementation teams only consist of senior consultants/project management who keep contact with top management and developers who keep contact with mid-management. Some other companies put consulting in the centre and both project management and development are but side activities. And so on, there are many possible combinations.

Marije_Brummel

Miklos Hollender wrote:

...If you are something like me, a 29 years old guy with a ponytail who looks uncomfortable in a suit...

How did you know how I look? We never met

(BTW I am 30). 8)

Miklos_Hollender

I don't know, it was about me

Besides, it's a stereotype

Alex_Chow

It's a scary though if everyone on this forum looked like Mark.

DenSter

It's a scary thought if Miklos would be the stereotypical developer :shock:

Marije_Brummel

deadlizard wrote:

It's a scary though if everyone on this forum looked like Mark.

Hmm, that remembers me of your first description of me.

ssingla

No where I have found so fun loving senior consultants (consultants of second sense)